Witchcraft, the Truth and the Book that Found Me

I wasn’t looking for anything profound. I was scrolling Facebook Marketplace, trying to buy second-hand instead of new—partly for sustainability, partly because older objects tend to last and carry more character.

At the same time, I was intentionally looking for copper products, drawn to their traditional health benefits and long history of use. That’s when a copper pitcher caught my eye, and I bought it without much thought.

Along with the pitcher came a small stack of books: Witches, Druids, and Sin Eaters. Not exactly light reading, but they immediately stood out. All three focus on people and practices pushed to the edges of history—groups that existed outside official systems of belief and authority.

There’s a habit I have when something feels a little charged: I open to page 42. I don’t analyze it or force meaning—I just look. So I did that with each book.

And that’s when Reginald Scot appeared.

On page 42, again and again, I found references leading me to The Discoverie of Witchcraft, written in 1584. I hadn’t been searching for it, yet there it was—quietly surfacing through these books, asking to be noticed.

Scot’s work was bold for its time. He openly challenged the witch hunts and exposed how the Roman Catholic Church had weaponized the idea of witchcraft. Belief outside Church doctrine could be labeled demonic or dangerous. People weren’t persecuted for causing harm, but for thinking differently, healing differently, or living beyond sanctioned belief.

Scot argued that witches, as authorities described them, didn’t truly exist. Confessions were coerced. Fear was manufactured. And that fear became a tool of control.

What stuck with me was how clear it all felt. “Witchcraft” was never the real issue—it was simply a word powerful enough to turn belief into a crime. Once burned into culture, the fear lingered long after the fires went out.

And the way I found this story mattered too. It didn’t come through study or searching. It came through intention—choosing sustainability, seeking copper for health, following intuition, opening a page.

Rewrite the past with what you learn #42isyou

Sometimes history doesn’t arrive loudly.

Sometimes it finds you,

quietly putting one more piece into place.

Bill